Calfrac and Sonic sent in workers to help get the park running quickly. They helped build frames on Jeffries fences to get the sponsor signs back up there.
Morrison added. “I knew we would survive the year, but I knew it was going to be hard financially what it would do to us the next year and the year after that. That was my fear.”
The Mavericks were on the road when the park flooded. In their first game following the flood on June 22, they defeated the Lethbridge Bulls, and went on a 14-game winning streak, one of the longest streaks in the Western Major Baseball League, which was finally snapped July 11.
Morrison thinks when people saw the devastation to the city and Athletic Park, coupled with the team’s winning streak, it helped keep attendance at Jeffries up for the rest of the season.
“We started off hot here (Athletic Park), we only had six here, but those things coming together really saved
the organization,” he said. “We were averaging in the four or five hundreds. If we were only getting 100 to 200 people up there, it would have been devastation financially.”
“People knew this team had stepped up to the challenge and were playing through it all, it was a remarkable thing.”
The Mavericks finished the season with a 39-7 record, the best record in WMBL history. They made it to the league finals, but we defeated three games to one by the Melville Millionaires.
Despite this, Morrison is proud of the season.
"When people say 'it's too bad you didn't win the championship,' I tell them 'every year somebody wins the championship, but there's only one team to have the league records for wins. If you've got to pick, yeah you've got to want the championship, but for those guys to go out and just win, and they won every kind of
way you could, I'm very proud of the players."
When the flood hit the field, it left behind mud and silt which caked onto the field. It needed to be removed so the grass underneath could breathe and not die. A massive effort from the community was undertaken in August to remove the mud from the field and work continued on the park through the season to get it up and running.
Coming to Athletic Park in January, the field was already starting to green up from the melted snow. The floor in the ticket office still needs to be replaced, dividers in between rooms have to be replaced and a number of supplies are still being stored at Jeffries, but Morrison says the park will be ready to go for home opener on June 1.
“People will show up and they’ll see our mascots, and they’ll see our ticket office and they’ll see everything just like we left off before the flood,” he said. ■
our communities ❚ our region ❚ our people
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